Email journal from the Australian yacht Maranatha sailing in Louisiades Archipelago, PNG

Admiral’s Update No 19 2014

We are back in Australia with my Dad at Brunswick Heads. He is very frail and breathless but delighted to see me and determined not to go back to hospital no matter what. We booked the boat is into the marina at Monastir in Tunisia for a month and caught a train to the capital, Tunis, about 100 kilometres away. It took us 1 and 1/2 days to complete the paperwork to clear into the country.

We booked first class (only $1.50 dearer than second class) but it was decidedly minus five star with half the windows cracked with “bullet holes” (probably from rocks) and the other half literally too dirty to see out of. There weren’t enough first class seats so Phil sat in the second class carriage. The man next to him told him this was much better than the trains they had three years ago before the revolution. Phil spent the journey discussing the various end times prophecies in the Koran and the Bible and left him with a Bible which he accepted gratefully. The train arrived an hour late and we haggled with the taxi drivers to take us to the airport. They started at 40 dinar ($A30) but eventually settled on 12 dinar. We had been told that 10 dinar is the usual fare. So far our impressions of Tunis are “not impressed”.

We had a good flight home — only 22 hours in the air with only a two hour stop-over in Dubai. Poor Phil had picked up a urinary complaint and was highly embarrassed to have to climb over the other passengers to go to the toilet numerous times. He’s having treatment for it now.

Our plans are to stay put for a month and then asses the situation and see where we go from there. We may need to find someone else to help Phil sail the next leg of the Med. Thankyou for those of you who pray regularly for us. It is so much appreciated.